Shortcircuit
by volley
Summary: Friend In Need. Reed stumbles out of sickbay after watching Hayes die...  Added scene to the episode Countdown.


The last few episodes of Season 3 are tough on Reed. He watches a MACO he had chosen to accompany him and T'Pol on that sphere die; has Hayes doubting that he did all he could to save his man; Hoshi is abducted; and Hayes, unlike him with the MACO, dies to save her. I wish there had been more character introspection. And I was always intrigued by the change in Reed between the scene in sickbay, when he looks deeply affected, almost shocked at Hayes's death; and the scene when he stops one brief moment outside the Armoury hatch, before entering to inform the MACOs and choose those that will board the weapon with him and the Captain; there, outside the Armoury, he seems to steel himself and recover his determination. So I imagined something had happened in between the two scenes... and this Friend In Need story came out.

Once again all my gratitude to RoaringMice, who can invariably make my writing so much better.

* * *

When Trip saw the sickbay doors open and Malcolm stumble out, his heart, which was already heavy, sank another floor or two. The man's head was bent and his eyes were firmly on the deck plating, but there was no mistaking how ashen his face was. Even knowing about the Reed ban on tears, Trip wondered if he might have actually capitulated.

Please, _please_ – Trip prayed – let her not be... He couldn't formulate the thought. He had been the one who had transported the party back from the Reptilian's ship; the one who had first seen Hoshi materialise on the pad, and it hadn't been a particularly reassuring sight. Damn! Would the Dark Lady never have her fill of young lives? Lately she had been snatching too many among them, and every time it re-opened the Wound in his heart. He couldn't accept when her scythe felled someone prematurely, especially someone close; as close as a sister, or a friend.

As if he had sensed his presence or his thoughts, Malcolm lifted his eyes. As they met Trip's, he briefly lost his momentum, before finding it again and stumbling forth.

Trip watched him approach with apprehension and studied him, trying to read the truth between the lines on his face without having to ask a question he knew was likely to stick in this throat. God, he couldn't remember ever seeing Malcolm this... this… He couldn't find a word that would describe him. Feeling his heart clench painfully, he rubbed an absent hand over his sternum.

It wasn't the bereavement in the grey gaze that was the most upsetting, actually, but a certain sense of imbalance about his friend, making him look out of place in the middle of corridors bustling with tense and concentrated activity. Malcolm looked like a man without purpose or direction, and that was disturbingly unlike him; besides, this was hardly the right time for that. Right now, whatever may have happened to Hoshi, the crew needed their Armoury Officer to keep it together.

Breaching the last couple of metres that separated them, Malcolm came to a silent halt before him. He looked beyond exhausted. Trip shifted his eyes numbly to the glass doors behind. He could see Hoshi's immobile form on one of the beds, but there was no telling if she was dead or alive.

"Phlox says she's stable," Malcolm croaked out unexpectedly. Before Trip could let out even a sigh of relief, Malcolm put a quick hand in front of his mouth and stumbled to the nearest storage compartment. Shoving it open, he disappeared inside.

Frowning with renewed concern, Trip followed him. Sounds of dry heaving could be heard coming from the small room; Trip bit his lip and waited a long minute, until they had subsided, before pushing the door open and looking inside. His friend was bent forward, leaning on outstretched arms on some large canisters, eyes scrunched closed, chest heaving in the effort to regain control.

"She'll pull through, Malcolm," Trip said, trying to sound reassuring. "Hoshi's strong, and she's in good hands." But the words brought no comfort, no relief onto his friend's face. A cold knot of suspicion formed in his guts. "What about Hayes?" Trip made himself ask, feeling more than a bit guilty that his first thought had only been for Hoshi. He had seen the Major collapse on that transporter pad, crying out in agony as he had clutched his chest. The medics had rushed him away at full speed.

Malcolm's mouth turned down and his facial muscles clenched. "He... I saw him..." he stuttered in a very deep voice where emotion rang clear. Blinking, he finally managed, "He died not five minutes ago, before my eyes."

Trip looked at his friend speechlessly. He would have never expected Malcolm to be so deeply affected by Hayes's death; the two had butted heads virtually from the first day the MACOs had come on board. And surely this couldn't be the first time Malcolm had seen someone die from battle wounds.

Quietly entering the small room, Trip switched the light on and closed the door. "Hey," he said. "You gonna be ok? Don't fail me now."

A numb face lifted and turned to him. "Now?" Malcolm breathed out with more than a hint of sarcasm. "I _have_ failed you. You, the Captain, this crew..."

Fostered by fatigue and tension, anger surged with devastating speed within Trip. Malcolm couldn't give him this crap. "Stop that," he snapped harshly. "Stop wallowing in self-pity, and get your act together! We still have a job to do, if you haven't noticed."

He flashed Malcolm a blazing look, but the man had let his head drop again and was not reacting, and the sight extinguished the worst of its fire pretty quickly. He reached out and gripped Malcolm by his shoulders. "We still have a job to do," he repeated with calmer determination. "Earth needs you."

There was another sarcastic huff. "Count the body bags in sickbay; take a look at the holes on Hoshi's forehead," Malcolm croaked out. "Read the long list of those who left with us but won't be going back. I couldn't keep eighty-two people safe: do you really expect me to save the _world_?"

Trip felt like giving Malcolm a good shake and shout in his face, _No one expects you to save the world alone_. He had a hard time keeping himself in check, and the only thing that helped him was the thought that if he allowed anger to take over it would likely trigger a bitter confrontation, and get them nowhere. Not that the man didn't need a jolt; but maybe not a physical one.

"Listen to me, Malcolm," he said firmly, summoning patience he felt he didn't have. "Those deaths were not your fault. And you weren't even there when Hoshi was abducted."

The reply came right away, in a voice that was low and struggling to keep too much from showing. "Right. I was on that bloody sphere, watching a young man under my command disintegrate, mauled by an automated defence system."

Malcolm looked deliberately away from him; he seemed to be digging deep within himself and once again Trip found that the sight was like a pail of water on the embers that sizzled within him.

So much had happened in so short a time, and he had been so concentrated on his own job, that all he knew about T'Pol's and Malcolm's mission on that sphere was that it had succeeded in giving them some important information. When the pod had returned, Trip now realised, he hadn't even seen his friend come out of it.

"Who?" he asked softly.

Finally straightening up, Malcolm leaned back against the wall. "Corporal Hawkins," he murmured, eyes shifting fleetingly back to him. "I couldn't…" He tightened his lips. It was a moment before he spoke again. "I chose him. Signed his death warrant."

"You've got to be kiddin', you-"

"Hayes felt I was at fault, wanted a full report," Malcolm continued darkly, cutting Trip off. "He told me he couldn't help thinking his man might still be alive, had he commanded the mission." His eyebrows shot up as he huffed out, "And perhaps he was right."

Self-doubt. Trip finally felt his heart go out to his friend without reserve. It was absurd that Malcolm should doubt himself, under the circumstances. But in a way he could understand it. His job was to keep them alive, and lately they had been surrounded by death.

"He promised me he'd bring Hoshi home," Malcolm went on. "And he did; at the cost of his life. I…" His facial muscles tightened again, and he shook his head, pressing two fingers on his eyes.

Trip heaved a deep breath, which lifted his chest but not the weight off his heart. The last few days, he now realised, had been devastating for this proud and committed man. Malcolm had come out beaten and bruised, and this final blow – Hayes's death – seemed to have floored him for good. The thing was, what could he tell him that wouldn't sound like empty words?

He reached out again and gripped his friend's arm tightly. "It's hard when someone under your command dies. But I _know_…" He paused, hoping Malcolm would lower that damn hand and look at him, read the understanding in his gaze; he didn't. "I _know_ that you would have sacrificed your life to save Hawkins's. If the Corporal died it's because there was nothing that could be done to save him. Hayes would've made no difference, and I bet the Major knew that, despite what he told you."

The hand finally dropped, revealing eyes that were still tormented.

"I must inform the MACOs," Malcolm said, and Trip could hear in his voice the strain that task was putting on his friend; as if, for some absurd reason, Malcolm felt he could be found at fault even for Hayes's death.

"I will have to walk into the Armoury and tell them that their Commanding Officer-"

"_You_ are their Commanding Officer now, Malcolm. They need to see that you are in charge."

Malcolm's brow creased. "In charge of _wh-at_?" he said bitterly. "I'm the bloody bastard who has to pick and choose who next to send to their death, when we finally reach that weapon." He closed his eyes and shook his head, as if to chase away a distressing image. "I will be looking at them and Death will stare back at me, taunting me to tell her which one." He grimaced. "I'm not certain I can do that. Decide which life to sacrifice on the next altar."

Trip tightened the grip. "You need to be strong. For yourself and for them."

"It's easy for you to say," Malcolm barked back, grey eyes suddenly cutting. "The orders you give your men are to swap relays or -"

Shock suddenly shattered the ice in his gaze, leaving him for a moment with his mouth agape.

"Hell, I'm sorry. Forgive me," he stammered. "That was… not me." He swallowed. After a pause, he added, "I've spent my life building up strength. _Fortitude_, I should say. I had hoped I had enough of it to face almost anything that would be thrown at me; but this is perhaps more than even I can handle."

Riding the see-saw of emotions that had been set in motion almost from the moment they had met out in the corridor, Trip climbed once again to a peak of irritation, just to plunge a moment later to a depth of empathy. Somehow, he clawed his way back to a balance point and said resolutely, "I know you can. And I know you will. And I know that whoever you decide to take with you, when the time comes they will follow you unblinkingly to hell and back. Because they'll be _following_ you, Malcolm. You'll be there with them, at their head, ready to take the brunt of it."

They fell silent, and for a long moment it was as if time stood still. They could hear people passing by in the corridor, noises from the repair work, muffled voices; but it all seemed so far away.

"I think it's time we went back," Malcolm finally breathed out, blinking and pushing off the wall.

"Not before I know you'll be ok," Trip said, shooting his friend a concerned look. He wasn't sure he had reached Malcolm, and somehow he knew he had to, before they lost each other again in the madness of it all.

"Yeah," Malcolm replied wearily. "I'll be fine."

At Trip's 'you've-got-to-be-kidding-me' look he added, once again his self-conscious self, "Trip look… I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me. It's not like me to be this... I think I sort of short-circuited."

Trip heaved somewhat of a relieved breath. "Well, good thing you bumped into the Chief Engineer, then," he said, allowing a faint smile to curl his lips.

"Best thing that could happen to me, actually," Malcolm quietly agreed, without a trace of humour.

Trip gave Malcolm's arm a last squeeze. "Ready to face whatever awaits us out there?" He put a hand on the door knob.

Malcolm pursed his lips. "I'm afraid I know what awaits me. But I'll be fine," he repeated.

They exchanged a last look; then Trip pushed the door of their improvised confession chamber open.

They walked along the corridor in silence, and soon came to a juncture. Malcolm shot him an expressive side glance. "I'll see you later, Commander," he murmured. With a nod he turned his way, to that Armoury that had been his pride and refuge, and now was going to be his test of courage.

Trip stopped a moment to watch him walk away. There was purpose in Malcolm's stride again: he had no doubt his friend would not fail.


End file.
